No Tender Shins at WNY MMA

So, after watching UFC for the last like decade, you have been introduced to a number of combat arts that have been proven to be effective in the cage. One of those styles is a striking art from Thailand called muay thai, or for the initiated, the art of eight limbs. Unlike other styles that you may be familiar with, kickboxing for example; only makes use of the fists and the feet to do damage. In muay thai; you have the fists, elbows, knees, and shins. But wait, isn't muay thai just like kickboxing, ummmmmmm... next question. As you can see, it utilizes many more tools than you would find in american boxing and kickboxing, pretty much giving you more to put your opponent down with. At WNY MMA & Fitness we have all three, but Ill be cover one particular aspect of muay thai in this article; shin conditioning.

Now I know what you're thinking, they kick with there shins, it hurts when I bump my shin on the edge of a table. Through proper shin conditioning and years of training, there have been muay thai and Kyokushin guys have put their shins through baseball bats with little more than a trickle of blood. Read what I just wrote again so we are both on the same page, I said PROPER shin condition. Lets go over what improper shin conditioning is, by no means do you go outside and kick trees. I know, you see videos of guys in thailand doing it, here's the thing about that; they are kicking banana trees, they not sturdy like the trees we have in our yards. If you do, you may kill the nerves in that area, but you will also increase the risk of fractures in the shin, ultimately you will be unable to train for a while. What we do at WNY MMA & Fitness, along with other muay thai gyms, is that we will use thai pads and the heavy bag as the primary source of shin conditioning. Its a gradual progression from soft and tender shins to shins of steel.

How does this happen, I glad you asked. Your skeletal system goes through a breakdown and remodeling cycle quite frequently. I posted a video above for you to take a gander at that will give you a very cool view of the process. Anyway, when you put stress on the bone over a long period of time, I.e. when you kick the bag or when you do weight bearing exercises like squats, the body will breakdown old bone and rebuild it with new calcium deposits. This is important because this is how your bones become harder and stronger, this process can not be rushed. This is not to say that your shins won't hurt in the process, they will hurt when you first start training muay thai. When they start to hurt always give your shins time to heal, during that time its always good to work your knees or the other striking tools. When sparring at WNY MMA& Fitness, you will be wearing shinguards, so no worries.